I'm sorry if this is the wrong section - didn't know where else to put it. Anyways I'm planning on switching from Nano to Micro and I've found this one on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/ATMEGA32U4-Leonardo-Micro-With-Bootloader-Ready-For-Arduino-IDE-1-0-3-/130834359666?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e7655e572

i think the quality is good and they will just work fine. though for original ardus i think they do an extra quality check.but i also think this destroys this community as i guess the support or this forum only get financed by buying original ardus.

in fact i have more faulty parts from the big names as their QC sucks ,and they buy them from china any way .

Illogical, if they buy from China then it is China's QC that sucks. No company buys from China and then unpacks them to to there own testing. If something doesn't work then it is up to the factory to test and rectify it.

So save a few pennies and sponge off the people who do support the Arduino and pump some money back into the project.

It is not a real Leonardo it is a rip off. Not even a clone because it is pretending to be a real one.

For the price difference I think it is always better to support the real thing. After all it pays for a lot of things, not least of which is this forum.

How can it be a ripoff? The shematics for every Arduino board is freely available.

Yes they are but these are pretending they are real Arduinos and copying things like the trademarks and FCC markings when they have no legal right to do so. This is called passing off and is illegal. The customs in your country are within their rights to confiscate such a product. Some people have reported here that this to have happened to them. If they use the same layout and call it something different and say it is a clone then there is no issue because it in not pretending to be something it is not. They will just be using open source information to manufacturer a product, not pretending it is something else.

@lax123

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because i know the boards get tested even though all parts might be from china :-)

The original comment referred to getting things made in China not getting components sourced in China. In fact there are very few fabrication plants in China for semiconductors, components are sourced from all round the world.